Real Value in Healthcare: It Can’t Be About Manipulating Just Outcomes or Cost

What is value in healthcare?

Professor Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School defined “value” in the healthcare sector as the outcomes we achieve for the money we spend.

While many in healthcare aren’t completely aligned on the impact or importance of specific costs or outcomes, there is a general alignment on the idea that Value = Outcomes/Cost.

The challenge isn’t necessarily in understanding the value quotient itself; rather, it’s how to drive true “value” in a manner that improves outcomes while reducing costs. The idea of outcome improvement and cost reduction as events that are not mutually exclusive seems counter-intuitive to many.

This is the crux of the challenge in implementing healthcare change that drives real value.

Curant Health and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine: creating patient value

Last week, Curant Health and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine announced the first-ever study measuring the impact of enhanced Medication Therapy Management (MTM) on outcomes for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) patients: Project A.L.I.V.E. Study Announcement .

According to principal investigator and assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University Sharon Dudley-Brown, PhD, Crohn’s Disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are chronic, debilitating conditions that can have important economic and clinical implications. In 2004, the annual cost of IBD in the United States was estimated at $1.84 billion. IBD is associated with high morbidity, loss of work productivity and impaired quality of life.

The hypothesis driving the study is that through enhanced MTM more patients will be adherent to IBD medication therapy and experience a better quality of life, fewer hospitalizations and an overall lower healthcare spend applicable across the population of Americans suffering from IBD. In other words, enhanced MTM will drive both improved outcomes and lower costs.

Outside of the healthcare arena, value is defined more broadly than outcomes/costs; instead, it’s defined as “relative worth, merit, or importance.” To understand the intent of this trial is to understand its objectives: clarifying, in real-world results, the proper utilization and effect of adherence to medication therapies on clinical outcomes in a population of IBD patients.

The overarching aim of this trial is to deliver “value” to the patient, the provider and the payer through the recognition that “relative worth, merit, and importance” are significant factors in healthcare, too.

Learn more about Project A.L.I.V.E.

Want to know more about this trial? Contact Jake Caines, National Sales Director, jcaines@curanthealth.com or 866-437-8040, x313.